In order to take the moral high ground, you have to actually occupy that territory first...

Thursday, February 11, 2010

A Question of Porn...

A buddy of mine did a photo shoot this weekend. He's been working on his photography a lot lately, and he managed to find a new model. Shot for about five hours this weekend, and showed off his work to us this morning.

They were great shots. He's been experimenting with some filters, and in particular an oil painting effect for his digital work. And his model was amazing. She really shines through, and he was happy because she was so bright, and funny, and professional. Suggested all sorts of settings, poses, knew how to work with light, and really taught him a lot about working, all the while really working the camera for all she was worth.

Thing is, I recognized her. Not just from her pin up work, but from other shoots that she's done over the years. His model used to do porn. Some if it soft core, some of it a little harder, and interspersed with some really fun pin up work, and other stuff throughout the years.

Now then, I don't have the rights to the photos--but they were really neat. And I don't feel comfortable shouting the model's name to the mountain, because she never mentioned her porn past to my buddy, so advertising it doesn't seem real fair to her. Mind you, her work is out there, and it's easy enough to find with a simple GIS of her name, and if you've got your Safe Search off, it's easy to find her hard core work, as well as her pin up modeling. Which is what sort of brings up the reason for this whole little diary.

I can't judge this gal. She is gorgeous, she does great pin up shoots, she is sexy as all get out, and my buddy Jase was pleased with his work with her. Part of her appeal, is that she is exuberant, and a wee bit naughty, and knowing, and it would be hypocritical as Hell of me to frown up on her hard core work, since I know of it. Who is more the perv--the one who makes the porn, or views it, after all?

I have a hard time judging folks for their decisions to go into the adult entertainment business. In part, because as a consumer, it's damn hard for me to point fingers at someone for creating work that I view. And in part because I've known a few folks who've done adult work in the past.

I adore this woman. Candye Kane is one of the toughest, and smartest, and sweetest acts that came through the circuit while I was at The Iron Horse Music Hall. She is one of my favorite people on this planet, period. So funny, so touchingly sweet, so aware and bubbly and bright. She came in, and she belted out tunes that made your heart soar, your booty shake, and so damn sessy and sweet, that it was hard to not just want to scoop her up and eat her with spoon. That could be my Southren upbringing though.

Candye did a lot of porn over the years. Plumpers. Big Mamas. You name a BBW magazine in the 80s, she was somewhere near it, most likely at one time or another. She moved away from that, and towards music, but she never shied away from her past. Never tried to bury it. She always owned those years, because those years gave her two great boys, and introduced her to bands and gave her the opportunities that led to her share the stage with the Circle Jerks, Social Distortion, Black Flag, and a whole slew of others. Her notoriety and fame in porn got her foot in the door, and when she moved from LA to San Diego, it led her to discover the blues and swing, and took her country punk sort of stylings to a whole different level.

She's been off the circuit for a bit. She's had a battle with cancer, that she seems to have beaten back, and that is impressive by itself. She is a heck of a gal. She isn't the only porn star to make good. There are plenty of women and men who've taken their adult careers and parlayed them into more mainstream careers, and done more than just bone for a living.

I've worked with a few folks over the years who've gone into the adult business. Working as a chef, I've worked with hostesses and waitresses who've done dancing on the side. It's good money, and it's hard to argue against making extra cash if you can. Two of the women I've worked with who've gone into stripping, are attorneys now. It helped pay for school for them. Of course, they were also Smith students, and got into the adult industry as an extension of their women's study course. Both did work as part of their programs. Another was a runner for me, and she went into photo shoots, and came to me while she was working for me for advice.

I went through a laundry list of reasons against it. Not the least of which was Nicolle's recovery from addiction. She had been homeless, she'd been a junkie, and it had taken a lot to get her clean and sober. I ticked off the risks and to her credit, she had an answer for each. She didn't go into modeling without a plan, and without being aware. She was all of 19, but she'd been through the wringer, and had no plans of going back.

In Nicolle's case, she got her GED, and then she went to the community college. She's still modeling, and she works a few days a month, and puts herself through school. She's working towards a Master's now, and a tidy little nest egg. She's clean, she's got a nice little apartment, and she lives a nice life. And while I've never actually checked out her work--it would be weird since she was one my kids at the Horse and she's like family--I am kind of proud of her. Because she's done exactly what she said she was going to do, and for a gal who had been a street kid, to go to grad school on her own, that is a hell of an accomplishment.

For all of these success stories, and I've not mentioned Nina Hartely or Dr. Sharon Mitchel--who has her own horror stories about the industry--there are a lot of gals and fellas who don't do anywhere near so well. Dancers and actresses who get hooked on drugs. Dancers who do a few movies, and then slide into prostitution and drug addiction and then simply fall through the cracks. Then there are higher profile cases like Savannah and her suicide. The sad case of Emily Sander's murder. Then there are cases like that of Crystal Gunns who slid off the radar, and surfaced as a lunch lady in Jersey--and the panic it caused when her past surfaced.

Porn is estimated to be a multi-billion dollar industry. Those figures are old, and while the economy has dipped, it is still a solid piece of the pie in California now. And with it, we've seen figures like Tila Tequila get very mainstream fame from appearances in Playboy. We've seen Katie Morgan get mainstream fame, and while she may have retired from films, Jenna Jameson is a widely recognized figure. In California, it's very much a major spar in the film industry--even if you exclude hard core work, there is still a giant industry in soft core films for cable and what is produced for the internet market alone accounts for a sizable chunk of change for folks.

You've got the fame of the Suicide Girls, and their sort of mainstream knockoffs in the Pussycat Dolls. Jill Kelly has her own production company, Seymore Butts not only has his own production company and distribution network, but his Showtime gig was the focus of a great deal of mainstream publicity and did a great deal to put very human faces on the industry--as well as put a fair amount of money into the pipe for free speech causes.

Like it or not, the porn industry is now a powerful industry. Hardly a shadowy sort of thing that is hidden. So, my buddy running into a porn star as a model, that doesn't seem all that surprising. That I recognized her instantly from the shots is less impressive even--she is striking, she has a solid market, and I'm enough of a perv to have some knowledge of the very much modern/retro pin up community. But it still was a bit of a surprise in our circle of friends.

How can we reconcile ourselves with this? We have legal adult entertainment, my own state borders Nevada, and their legal brothels that don't seem to have caused the fabric of space-time to alter to cause horrible fractures or massive plagues and swarms of locusts. The argument can be made that prostitution, if legalized, would be safer and certainly a much less dangerous profession--and probably more profitable to the community as well as the women and men involved directly. It would give greater recourse for damages, and it would mean regulation that would improve the health of the sex workers.

We have a society that likes to pretend it's enlightened, and among my friends there is all sorts of lofty talk, but when it was discovered that Jase had worked with a porn star, the reaction was surprising. Instantly with jokes that were derisive of the gal in question. Which to me, is more shocking--again, who is more the perv: the model/actress or the folks who sit in their rooms and dial up porn? How can we sit in judgment, if we have built a multi-billion dollar industry?

Are there problems within the sex industry--and let us not mince words, it IS an industy--certainly.

Film, internet, brothels, craigslist prostitutes, down to the concierge in your finest of hotels and the streetwalkers in every major city, there is a market for sex and sessy play. And industries have predators and creeps--from restaurants to publishers, from offices to scams that pretend to be non-profits. You can find bad brake businesses, and you can certainly find assholes galore in the adult entertainment industry. But, the question is, how can we reconcile our desire for material, and the positives that can result in embracing sexuality and taking charge of your own sexuality, and accepting that of those around you--even if you don't happen to share it*--and balance that with protecting the vulnerable from exploitation? And more importantly, can we confront our own prejudices and still protect folks?

*I point to Furries, and especially Erotic Furries who creep me the hell out. Most cosplay just creeps me out, but if they can find consenting adults to share their kink, more power to them. Just don't link me anything to them, and the less you mention them to me the better.

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About Me

Hubie was born on the lovely island of Okinawa, moved from there to San Francisco, and then onto Missouri, Texas, Maine, South Carolina, Georgia, Lousiana, Germany, back to Texas, back to Maine, and then onto the Happy Valley of Massachusetts. He considers himself Kraut/Mick/Nip, and is glad to be a bit of a redneck in Yankeeland. Then he moved to another Happy Valley, but damn this is one is a lot more parched... He cooks when he's not Farking, or writing, or Farking, when he's supposed to be writing. He rarely bounces anymore, as he's discovered that excitement and interesting are over rated. He drinks his liquor straight; prefers the company of women to girls, men to boys; and considers himself to be fairly Conservative in the sense that he likes to Constitution as it stands, and is constantly amazed that folks who like the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th sometimes seem to forget the 2nd, and visa versa. He spent some time as a Young Republican, but then got better. He now votes for whoever he damn well feels like.